Cable television networks for broadcasting television programs are wide spread. More and more homes are being connected to these cable broadcasting networks to receive higher quality program reception and a multitude of additional channels. In addition to standard cable programming, a selection of programs are broadcasted on a pay-per-view basis in which the program is only broadcasted and received by the viewer if an additional fee has been paid to the cable television broadcaster.
Current cable broadcasting networks only output television programming signals to the television, and they do not have the capability of receiving input signals from the television or the television viewer. One disadvantage of watching movies broadcast by a cable television network is that if the viewer has to temporarily leave the room in which he is watching the movie there is no way to pause the broadcasting of the movie. For example, if the viewer gets a telephone call, wants to get something to eat, or has to visit the bathroom, he will do so at the sacrifice of missing the movie he is currently watching.
In contrast, videos and DVD disks played on a video cassette recorders and DVD players respectively, of course, may be paused or stopped momentarily by the movie viewer, allowing the viewer to break from watching the movie and get a snack or go to the bathroom without missing any of the movie. Current cable broadcasting companies do not provide the viewer with the option to suspend the current program and then restart the program at the point where it was paused.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide an remote television control system and method which has the capability of changing the broadcasted signal in response to the viewers input. Furthermore, the remote television control system and method should have the additional capability to change the operation of the television.